Western Digital Drive Manager was last released in December 2008 (really prior to this date). With the release of Snow Leopard, Drive Manager throws an error at least every 5 seconds (into the logs). Removing Drive Manager allows using the drive without filling the log with errors, but disables capabilities inherent to the design of the drive (e.g. unmount the drive via pressing the button on the drive, etc).
When does Western Digital plan to release an update to Drive Manager for compatibility with Snow Leopard?
Same here, but seeing as the software is more than a year old that’s no real surprise. Shame on WD, especially because they are selling the Studio Edition II as a “Designed for Mac”-drive and don’t even bother to have the software to support Apple’s latest OS.
If someone working for WD is reading this: Can you give us any information on when there will be a fully Snow Leopard compatible version of WD Drive Manager?
I have exactly the same problem. I’ve just updated to the latest firmware and WD Drive Manager and see these messages at least every ten seconds. This occurs whether connected by USB or firewire. I’m running fully up to date 10.6.2 on new iMac i7.
If I were to uninstall WD Drive Manager what features do I lose? (I can live without unmounting by pressing the button at the back of the drive…)
I’ll join the growing group - wonder how may others there are who haven’t looked in the console & noticed the problem? I’m going to email WD - not that I expect to see the problem solved soon.
Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support.
I apologize for this inconvenience. The WD Drive Manager is not compatible with Mac OS X 10.6. Please uninstall this software from your computer. Again, I apologize for this inconvenience.
I hope that we have met your expectations today and that you are satisfied with our service. If you have any further questions, please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you further.
I’ll see if I get a response to the question “Do they plan to update the software?”
Here is what I learned from WD when I asked how to uninstall and if they have any plans to update.
_You don’t need an uninstall software in order to remove WD Drive Manager from your computer. On Mac, all you have to do is open “Macintosh HD” from the desktop, open the Applications folder and drag & drop WD Drive Manager to the Trash Can.
We are currently working on further updates for the WD Drive Manager. However, we still don’t have an estimated date for its compatibility with Snow Leopard._
Removing the Drive Manager is necessary until there’s a compatible version for Snow Leopard, which we are working on. However, the drive should work fine without Drive Manager.
To be honest, I find this quite annoying. I bought a Studio II just two months before Snow Leopard was released, but now I am waiting for more than six months for a driver update. I mean, this is not a legacy product we’re talking about and Snow Leopards developer seeds were available months before the official release. Sorry, but this pretty much looks like you love to sell Mac branded products, but not to care for it. If I had known that the driver support for the Mac is that low priority on your schedule, I guess I wouldn’t have chosen a WD product (and I surely will think over this twice the next time).
You suggest to remove the Driver Manager, but this would spoil the availability of seeing the drive status and a Raid system is meant to increase data safety. So what is worth this when not noticing a failing device.
